France extends lockdown as countries see hope of virus peak
PARIS, France — France extended its nationwide lockdown on Monday for another month in a bid to halt the coronavirus pandemic, as other hard-hit countries considered easing their measures with hopes rising that death rates may soon plateau.
More than half of humanity is now under confinement to contain the virus, which has killed more than 117,000 people and infected nearly 1.9 million since emerging in China late last year.
Most of the dead are in Europe, but the United States has also been hard hit -- particularly New York state where more than 10,000 have died, close to half of all fatalities in the country.
Governments around the world are under pressure to save their economies from total collapse as a result of the mass shutdown of businesses and confinement of people, but officials are also trying to avoid a deadly second wave of the disease.
While New York's governor said the peak had passed on Monday, Spain started to ease lockdown orders on Monday and Austria readied to reopen some shops.
But France did not follow suit, extending a lockdown in place since March 17 until May 11, after which schools and businesses are set to gradually reopen.
President Emmanuel Macron said the epidemic was "beginning to steady... (and) hope is returning", speaking in a televised address to the nation.
"May 11 will be the start of a new phase. It will be progressive and the rules can be adapted according to our results," he added.
France reported a slight increase in hospital deaths on Monday -- though still below its record numbers of last week -- and a slight dip in intensive care patients for a fifth day running.
The announcement came as the World Health Organization said lifting curbs too soon could unleash a second wave of cases and warned that only a vaccine would fully halt the spread of the COVID-19 disease.
'Path to normalcy'
But in some hotspots, there were slivers of hope that regular life may soon resume.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that the "worst is over" in the state, saying he was working on a plan to gradually reopen the economy.
"I believe we can now start on the path to normalcy," he said.
The impact on New York has been brutal, with unclaimed victims buried in unmarked mass graves and makeshift morgues set up for the dead.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the restrictions in place across much of the country as soon as possible to revive the hammered American economy.
European governments were also keen to get their economies moving again.
In Spain, where more than 17,000 have died, construction and factory workers were allowed back on the job on Monday and police handed out face masks at train stations to commuters.
"It's amazing that the government is doing this because either you can't find them in shops or they're very expensive," said nurse Brenda Palacios, who took two masks.
Austria said it would reopen small shops and hardware and gardening stores on Tuesday following a one-month lockdown, with coronavirus infections stabilising.
And Italy will reopen some bookshops and laundries on a trial basis on Tuesday, although it has officially extended its national lockdown until May 3.
Italy is the second worst-hit country after the United States and its death toll topped 20,000 on Monday -- however, the number of critically ill patients dropped for the 10th successive day.
Meanwhile, German scientists recommended a gradual lifting of restrictions later this week with the rate of new infections falling and a death toll that remains far below other major European nations.
WHO vaccine warning
But the World Health Organization warned that even the most careful easing of lockdowns was no substitute for a vaccine -- a process that is likely to take at least a year.
"Ultimately, the development and delivery of a safe and effective vaccine will be needed to fully interrupt transmission," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from Geneva.
He added that coronavirus was 10 times deadlier than the 2009-10 swine flu outbreak.
Similar warnings will weigh heavily on decisions being made in other countries.
In Britain, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned its three-week lockdown would not be lifted this week as the virus has not yet peaked.
Raab is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was released from hospital Sunday after being treated for coronavirus, thanking doctors who he said saved his life.
Britain recorded 717 deaths on Monday, a slight drop from the day before, taking the toll to over 11,000.
China infections rise
In China, officials reported 108 new symptomatic cases Monday, the highest number of confirmed infections in a single day in over a month.
Imported cases accounted for most of the total, officials said.
Russia reported its highest daily rise in cases so far, as the capital Moscow began to issue digital travel permits.
And in India, key industries warned of social unrest unless Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes concessions when he announces any extension Tuesday to a three-week lockdown of the country's 1.3 billion people.
It is not only humans under threat, with a major western Indian zoo bringing in social distancing for its big cats after a tiger in the United States caught the virus.
"We have decided to isolate them to avoid any kind of infection," superintendent Bharatsinh Vihol said at the Kamala Nehru Zoological Garden in Gujarat state. — with AFP bureaus
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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